


underlying everything

by stellatiate



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M, Mild Blood, Time Skips, i hate closing lines, just a series of vignettes about the future, mixed with some of my headcanons about them living on earth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 15:29:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8996278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellatiate/pseuds/stellatiate
Summary: “The way I feel about him is like a heartbeat — soft and persistent, underlying everything.” Three times Shiro's heart beats out of control and the one time it stops.
 
-—allura & shiro, earth au.





	

i.

Shiro blinks his eyes open slowly, ignoring the way his lashes stick together with sleep. The sun is trickling in through the curtains and his whole body floods with a sudden warmth at the sight of it. Amongst all of his interplanetary travel, he doesn’t think there’s anything that could move him the way simple sunlight could (except for the revolving moons in Iah, or the fractured comet crystals that rained down in Aali, or the red lightning storm they’d flown through on their way back).

Returning to Earth is a bittersweet victory for him. Every step feels heavier now, with the lacking weightlessness of shifts in gravity. The air feels too wispy, too fragile to breathe in. Shiro isn’t sure whether he’s returned to the place he had longed to be for so long, and it only takes him a few more frantic thoughts to tangle himself in them, to drown in them.

A soft palm touches the center of his chest and applies a pressure that makes him acutely aware of his own heart tapping erratically back, yearning for comfort.

“Shiro,” a gentle voice says and he turns his face towards the sound, “you’re thinking too hard. I can hear your heart beating from over here.” Her eyes are what remind him who she is. He reaches his softer hand out to touch her cheek and she smiles sleepily into his fingertips.

“Sorry,” he mumbles half-heartedly, but Allura only inches closer to him until her forehead bumps into his shoulder and her arms are tucked underneath him, nails scratching softly at his back. “You can’t _really_ hear my heart beating, can you?”

She laughs, a ringing noise that echoes in the silence of their morning. “I don’t know if it’s the air pressure or the fact that we’ve been sleeping together more often, but I think I can.” Those words bring crimson splashing into Shiro’s cheeks, simply from the implications. Allura offers him a curious look, but she doesn’t comment on it any further.

The idea that the sounds of his heart can be heard and interpreted by Allura is surprisingly more intimate than her accidental announcement of them sleeping together, and Shiro has to press down on the urge to cover his chest with his hands. It feels as if she’s looking straight into his chest now and he doesn’t know how to settle that feeling any more than he knows how to deal with his displacement on Earth.

“It’s okay,” Allura says and her mouth is ghosting over his skin, right where the flesh meets the metal, talking into his joints as if it will heal them somehow, “I like the sound your heart makes.”

 

ii.

It’s probably the most terrifying thing that’s ever happened to him.

Shiro takes Allura to the shopping center, a true testament to pastimes in the metropolitan area, and makes sure to show her all of the sights. He guides her with a careful hand on her back as they stand for the train ride, then leads her along the cobbled paths until they converge upon the entrance.

Allura takes the first step off of the curb and Shiro yanks her back, his breath caught in his throat. A car passes between them, the driver’s eyes glaring for a fleeting moment before he’s but a passing thought in the back of his mind.

“You have to be careful.” Shiro can feel his chest heaving but he can’t help it; his mind supplies him with the thoughts of what could have happened if he’d been distracted or if she’d been too quick and he doesn’t like the results that he gets.

Her eyes are wide and glittering, like a child. He doesn’t have the heart to chastise her any further, but he can’t help but think about the worst that could have happened.

“I’m sorry,” she says sternly, and when she squeezes his hand, he feels a little better. “There are still a lot of things I don’t know about Earth. I didn’t mean to…” Her voice trails off and Shiro catches the culprit; the thump of his pulse in the center of his palm. If she can’t feel it, then maybe she can _hear_ it. After all, he’s not sure that he’s coming off of the most strenuous adrenaline rush of his life, having to pull Allura out of traffic at the mall.

“I’m okay.” He smiles weakly, but genuinely. “I was just worried. I don’t want you to get hurt here.” Shiro moves to walk forward, but Allura is firmly planted in place, and he nearly loses his balance at her sturdiness. His brows furrow for a long time, and then he sighs.

“Is that how your heart beats when you’re scared? All…wild like that?” Her free hand touches her chest and rests there. Shiro never stopped to think about her fascination, but it seems peculiar to ask about her own physiology. It is one of those moments where he realizes just how alien Allura is, just how different the two of them truly are.

Shiro nods and the answer seems to satisfy her for the time being. She gives him a curious glance, but is more than happy to let the conversation fall to the wayside when they enter the shopping center.

 

iii.

“What a _pretty_ little thing you’ve captured, boy.”

The comment trickles down the back of Shiro’s neck and rolls down his spine in a way that makes him feel uncomfortable. The passerby on the street is grinning foully, lunging at Allura menacingly. There have been stares and questions but never _this_ , nothing even close. The older gentleman’s eyes look deceitful, and it makes his blood boil underneath his skin.

“I’m _not_ a thing,” Allura snaps, but he only grins and snatches for her wrist again. Shiro tugs her closer and he can feel her struggling at his side. He knows she doesn’t need his protection and she could most _definitely_ kick this guy’s teeth into orbit, but still.

But _still_. There’s something about standing up for her that makes him almost feel worthy of her attention, and he thrives on it.

So he swings.

Allura jumps back from his arms in shock, her hands flying to her mouth. Her eyes follow as the other guy hits the pavement, his nose immediately dripping with blood. His eyes look contemptuous, but he bites down on any other salacious comments in favor of nearly crawling away from the two of them. Shiro watches him amble down the street with an almost out of place grin, surprisingly satisfied with himself.

Her hands find a soft spot in the center of his chest and he can feel her head resting against his back as she presses her palms softly. “Shh,” she murmurs quietly, and he thinks she’s talking to his heartbeat, his pulseline, the little electric jumps between his nerves, “it’s okay. I’m okay.”

 

iv.

Shiro blinks his eyes open slowly, ignoring the way his lashes stick together with sleep. The moon is glowing and makes everything in their bedroom look like space, and he’s oddly fond of the sight. Amongst all of his interplanetary travel, he doesn’t think there’s anything quite as curious as the moon (except for the seven-legged birds in Ronne, or the carnivorous medusozoa in Pinon, or the way Allura pokes her tongue out when she’s extremely focused on something).

To mention her, it’s the reason why he’s awake again in the middle of the night. She tosses and turns beside him, more frequently during these summer nights than he’s ever remembered. But now he peers over at her and she’s sitting up straight, her palms covering her face.

“Allura,” he calls, hoping to pull her out of a trance, “are you alright?”

Her eyes are so bright no matter what time of the day it is, and the moon simply makes them luminescent, like the reflection of light off of the ocean. She finds his gaze in the dark and meets it timidly. Beneath the covers, she finds his hand and pries it free. Shiro flinches for a moment—she is always so fond of his metal arm, always holding his tinny hands, so the touch of skin to skin shocks him. But she moves it over her navel, presses her palm there tightly.

“I think you’re like me,” she glances at him shyly from behind the curtain of her starspun hair, “I think you can hear heartbeats too.” Her eyes are pinned to his and he doesn’t quite understand, not right away. The pressure she puts at the back of his knuckles makes his palms ache, and he resists the urge to squirm with his hand stretched over her stomach.

His eyes widen suddenly. Allura smiles and he thinks his heart has dropped out of his chest. “What?” He feels slightly drunk, delusional off of sleep or something of the sort. “What are you trying to tell me?”

The question means that he _knows_ , but he can’t stay it. Allura doesn’t say anything else either, just gently strokes the back of his hand with a smile. Shiro stares between the gaps of his fingers where he can make out the fabric of her sleeping gown and focuses his gaze figuratively into his own future.

It seems surreal.

“It’s okay,” Allura says with a pat to his hand. Her thumb rubs idly over his skin, brushing over the edge of his hand to touch her own stomach, her smile stretching across the night like a slit of the moon, “Now I’ll have another sound to listen for.”


End file.
